EXTENDING THE ETHICS CODE TO JUDICIAL OFFICIALS

An earlier post talks of Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre's brazen disregard of a 2002 Ethics Board board. His violations point to another much needed change in the code. Webre's code violations occuurred because of his private business's, Smart Start's, marketing of interlock ignition devices to his Lafourche parish citizens. The Board had instructed Webre that such Lafourche parish installations constituted a definite conflict of interest.

The Administrative regulations which govern interlock ignition devices are found under Title 55 of the Louisiana Administrative Code. For example, once a court orders the installation of an interlock ignition device as a condition of probation, the installer company must furnish calibration reports to the court every 40 days during the time the device remains on the vehicle. LOUISIANA ADMINISTRATIVE CODE TITLE 55 SECTION 615.

That has not been the practice with Smart Start's installation of interlock devices on those being prosecuted in Lafourche Parish. The clerk's records in Lafourche Parish ( Louisiana 17th Judicial District Court ) reflect that the judges of the 17th JDC chose during the past five years to ignore Section 615 in their ordering of the installation of interlock devices. Calibration reports were not compelled or received by any of the sections of the court. It is not difficult to see why. Sheriff Craig Webre's Smart Start company was the company installing the majority of interlock ignition devices in the parish.

If 17th JDC judges had enforced Section 615, both Webre and the court had a major legal problem. The problem for Webre was another paper trail : the filing every 40 days of a record of his Smart Start company's transacting of court-ordered business with his own Lafourche Parish citizens. And as the Ethics board had told him five years ago, DON'T DO IT. Adhering to Section 615 exposed the district court to an appearances of its own misconduct : judges in Lafourche Parish were permitting the sheriff to install the interlock devices which they were ordering on Lafourche parish citizens when the Board's 2002 ruling expressly prohibited it.

Webre saw Section 615 as an obvious hole, a hole in his ability to conceal his violation of the board's 2002 prohibition on Smart Start's business dealings in Lafourche Parish. The only way to plug that hole ? Get 5 judges to disregard the mandatory court-reporting requirement of Section 615.

Should those 17th JDC judges be subject to sanctions for what they did, for tacitly assisting Webre in concealing his masse of ethics violations ? Yes. Why not ? But currently judicial officials are excluded from coverage under the code. That needs to change. When judges aid an elected official, whether actively or passively, in concealing his violation of the ethics code, they have totally undermined its integrity and enforcement.